1. INTRODUCTION
Covid-19 has made a psychological impact on the Thai hotel industry as foreign visitors have cancelled traveling plans due to fear and the government imposing flight restrictions to safeguard the public health (Head 2020). Many have suffered losses in income and jobs from the fear that has been imposed on the people. As one of the most favorite destinations in Thailand for rest and relaxation and heavily reliant on foreign travelers to spend their money on goods and services, the hospitality businesses in Chiang Mai has been going through some financial hardships to keep things afloat (Pinchuck 2020). The province had been developed for this type of industry and is one of the crucial economic sectors bringing in the revenues for the public and state. Policies for taking the necessary precautions on limiting the spread of the virus by country leaders around the world have disrupted the flow of convenience and certainty of traveling thus having a negative repercussion effect on future plans for growth and development in the tourism and hospitality economy (ASEAN Policy Brief 2020).
Prior to the worldwide spread of Covid-19, the statistics gathered showed that the number of arrivals from 2010 to 2019 has steadily grown from 15.94 to 39.92 million per year (thaiwebsites.com). Despite some incidents abruptly occurring in the middle of this decade (riots and political uncertainty in 2010; major flooding in large parts of Thailand and northern Bangkok towards the end of 2011; political demonstrations ending in 2013 and ongoing into 2014; anti-government demonstrations occupied most of the first half of 2014, and followed by a declaration of martial law, and a military (bloodless) Coup d’Etat on 22 May 2014; bombing of the Erawan Shrine on 17 August 2015; crack-down on zero-dollar (Chinese) tour groups at the end of 2016 which had a significant effect on Chinese arrivals that persisted during the first quarter of 2017) the number of travelers steadily kept on increasing in 2016 and 2017. Chiang Mai is one of the preferred destination choices for travelers coming from abroad and for locals living in other parts of the region. Chiang Mai was ranked 24th place in the World and 5th place in Asia according to the 2013 Travelers’ Choice Destinations award, due to being a cultural and natural wonderland with ethnic diversity, a multitude of attractions, and friendly hospitality (Suanmali 2014). In 2019, 100 Billion Baht in revenue from 10.8 million visitors, of which 70% were Thais and 30% foreigners, were recorded in Chiang Mai (Bangkokpost.com). Unfortunately, for business operators linked to providing services to travelers, many of them have suffered a huge financial loss from the tourism revenues due to the visitors fear of being infected by Covid-19 along with tough government measures to limit the spread of the disease.
The reality for the hotels is to realize that they have to find ways to adapt to the circumstances by lowering all risks (Wongsamuth 2020), otherwise the business will shut down all at once. With no continuous stream of visitors making travel arrangements or accommodations decisions have to be made instantly amongst local owners of their enterprise that is innovative enough to draw some interests for business and highly creative to ensure that operations are viable for the long term (Campbell 2020).While the disease is causing a disruption in the system of getting workers to perform properly together, and emitting uncertainty about how the virus evolves and on the best methods to contain it (Menon, 2020), the business organizations of tourism and hospitality will need to take an initiative learning to make the crisis a favorable situation for them.
This research study seeks to explore whether the local businesses of hospitality in Chiang Mai, Thailand are taking a sustainable or survival approach in response to the pandemic situation that is occurring worldwide. Sustaining is having a bigger perspective of how the practical methods are being applied to give businesses the opportunity to expand on its venture or appeal to its customers and clients with great satisfaction (Weaver 2011). Sustaining is doing what is important now in order to have something for the future for all to cherish and be a part of a foundation that preserves the intrinsic values for all to learn and appreciate. Surviving tends to be a bit more drastic with the means to keep the business operation going in the moment as long as it can. While surviving tends to be assured as legitimacy for those who have a stake hold in the business operation it drifts along with the current situation while being a bit indecisive on what the actual goal is to be afterwards (Peprah et al. 2020).
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Sustaining versus Surviving in the Covid-19 Crisis
The worldwide outbreak of Covid-19 has caused a major disruption on the way people have been traveling and touring. According toKarim et al. (2020), “management should have a better understanding of policies being implemented for ensuring visitors’ wellbeing and safety”. Furthermore, the study stated that “travel agencies may provide suitable products and package to leverage the tourism industry and encourage customers for taking precaution in order to keep themselves safe”. With the current situation (April 2021) on the COVID-19 crisis in Thailand, the government pleadsand asks for cooperation from people in a country to avoid and limit all any nonessential domestic travels while maintaining physical and social distance, practicing hygiene by wearing a mask and often washing hand with alcohol-based hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol.
The idea of sustaining is seeking a balance between meeting the needs of the current generation and having the same capabilities to meet the needs of the future generation. The critical point is to keep the operation of things intact despite changes and challenges that may occur in an unexpected or unwanted manner. Sustaining tourism takes into account the issues that are political, economical, social, cultural and social for searching methods that would satisfice the state of mind with concerned groups (Chu and Chung 2016). Based on a study done on hospitality sustainment byKim et al. (2016) the staff needs to “be professional in details with their customers or clients being serviced”.
Tourism and hospitality businesses are intricately linked together as the individual evolves from being a passenger of a transporter that requires safety, to a resident at a hotel requiring comfort and care, to a tourist that takes part in sightseeing and shopping, and a blogger of social media when they make comments about the services being received or giving their opinions about a purchased product, therefore these activities bind the commercial service functions together (Wijesinghe 2014). The philosophical light coming out of this situation is that Covid-19 forces all network of the tourism and hospitality industry to reframe their operations that were previously unsustainable before the crisis hit (Higgins-Desbiolles 2020). Businesses that operate in a survival mode react to a sudden economic hardship, move out of their original operation to a new one or simply cut their losses, and try to get acclimated to the competition that is occurring (Deller and Conroy 2017). The competition is around 100 percent and everyone needs to survive by having some customers since most of the hotels do not want to close their business. Importantly, many of them just renovate and having some staff training in late 2019 and early 2020. They expect to have high return on investment in winter and Songkran festival in April. Unfortunately, the Covid-19 has shown up. As a result, any places need some marketing strategies adjustment and adaptation management. Economic decisions are made to minimize costs and any unnecessary expenses, and to find profitable ventures to shore up the revenues to keep the funds financing the operation for business survival, but failing to realize that standards have been affected by the action (Amankwah-Amoah, Boso and Antwi-Agyei 2018).
Garicano and Rayo (2016) provides insight on the competency of certain businesses that fail to maintain the long run due to the attitude of not wanting to take an initiative in problem solving or lacking the capacity to configure the right approach in making the corrections. In the midst of survival the businesses providing tourism and hospitality services should be aware of the social surrounding that provide the resources for their mission operation; thus a collaborative partnership with suppliers, adapting with the constant changes in the environment, and being innovative with customers and key stakeholders would develop opportunities into the future instead of being given chances to try out an assumption (Stefan and Bengsston 2017).Abubakar (2020) suggested for management not to go into diversifying the business operations as it would waste time and focus on the core competencies that bring in the business profitable during this unfortunate situation.
2.2. Sustaining the Business of Hospitality in the Midst of a Covid-19 Pandemic
The most important thing to factor into sustainability is the health, safety and wellbeing of travelers as they make their journey along each destination points and coming into contact for services.Jiang and Wen (2020) recommended that places of residency implement a hygiene surveillance for identifying spots that need to be given critical attention and procured immediately which will severely reduce the risk of virus spreading. In addition, assuring that visitors will get a sense of feeling safe means allowing them to know who and where to go for medical and health services should a case arise in their incursion.Chebli and Ben Said (2020) pointed out it’s important that the conditions of access and quality of care offered are managed with health standards and performance are done with proper results in order for travelers to be convinced that this is the right destination for traveling.
With Covid-19 changing the behavior and attitude of travelers as consumers the tourism and hospitality business will need to develop a marketing plan that ensures tourists from being exposed to any risks and develop innovative ideas in service value for visitors that may have their own personal agenda of traveling to a particular area (Medrano, Cornejo Canamres, and Olarte-Pascual 2020). Being sustainable is also relearning about the way things are done, thus the work ofGalvani et al. (2020) helps us to see COVID-19 as being a conscience of our past activities and to re-examine our lives and purpose as human beings and to seek a much healthier way with our natural and spiritual surrounding. The safety and health of workers who make up part of the tourism and hospitality industry must also be considered into the line of business operation as a scheme of preventing any serious outbreak which could further impact the plan for making progress (Sönmez et al. 2020).Hobbs (2020) indicates the importance of suppliers who play an important role by maintaining robustness and reliability which enhances their resiliency in supporting other businesses to carry out their functions and meet their aims.
2.3. Business of Hospitality Survival and Sustainability in the Midst of a Covid-19 Pandemic
In the absence of a proper infrastructure that supports the enterprises on finding ways of maintaining stability and sustainability the conditions resort them to find ill-advised procedures and half-baked solution to keep the business afloat for the time being (Ozili 2020). The name of the game of survival becomes a race on who can offer the lowest prices possible to any customers willing to pay for the accommodation services and not expecting to receive any standard of services (Noel 2020). Unfortunately, it’s always the workers who are laid off from the job when business is not going so well based on the pretext of reducing labor expenses (Dwomoh, Luguterah and Duah 2020). Upon facing a crisis, the standards of services drop and the view of customer care takes a back seat for the sake of managing the financial aspects to keep the business going (Sheresheva 2020). Businesses find temporary partnership to cooperate with on being innovative with the services to customers or production that are in the local market to shore up their revenues (Lapointe 2020). In the absence of foreign travelersGhosh (2020) asserts that the best approach for the tourism and hospitality sectors to survive is to focus on the local market and set the policies for sanitation and health which will convince the people to engage with events and activities.Rakshit and Paul (2020) believe that companies should rethink their business model, concentrate on their core business area, revive their strategies, rework their plans and policies, try to explore new markets, embrace new sales channel and find more opportunities to grow.
3. RESEARCH AIM AND OBJECTIVES
The aim of this research is to develop a sustainable model for the local hospitality businesses in Chiang Mai to alleviate the risk during the Covid-19 crisis and become resilient when the situation improves. To attain the aim the objectives are the following:
To explore on the extent of local hospitality businesses being sustainable in their management affairs.
To explore on the extent of surviving by the local hospitality businesses in their management affairs.
To learn how the local hospitality businesses are actually managing affairs which leads toward survival or becoming sustainable.
With the aim and objectives, the research study asks the following questions:
To what extent are local hospitality businesses being sustainable in their management affairs?
To what extent are local hospitality businesses surviving in their management affairs?
How are the local hospitality businesses managing their affairs to help them survive or become sustainable?
Practical Ideas for Sustaining Hospitality in the Midst of a Covid-19 Pandemic
This is the normal for now and people of all background will have to accept the fact.Jiang and Wen (2020) asserted that with the global health crisis caused by COVID-19, travelers are now likely to pay more attention to the availability and quality of medical facilities when making travel decisions. Regardless of the brand or reputation the business and managerial practice for tourism and hospitality will have to make the quality standard of cleanliness and sanitation as a must (Ballina, Valdés and Del Valle 2020) or be blacklisted from commercial associations or networks. With regards to safety and health issue there is a need to help promote education and training for staff to take the right measures that would be reinforced around the notion of valued services. With an expected wave of the virus mutating management of tourism and hospitality will need to work closely with public health institutions and medical professionals on being equipped to manage the situation and foster collaboration that aims toward resolving any difficulties occurring (Shamasunder et al. 2020). To be resilient is to reflect back on how the operations of tourism and hospitality have been successful and needed further improvement.Sigala (2020) tells us “to reimagine and implement an operating environment that is human-centered and responsible to sustainability and well-being values”. All assumptions and paradigm that have been previously implemented from the operating model of tourism and hospitality can be assessed to understand where changes can be made to correct or added on to enhance the health and safety of people and the social/natural environment (Ioannides and Gyimóthy 2020). Different perspectives add value into insights on best ways to manage risks or enhance the wellbeing of travelers and tourists, thus being more resilient with a multi-mindset in handling emergency, health care, entertainment, and providing leisure and recreation in a simultaneous fashion (Miles and Shipway 2020).
This study compiled concepts and theories, academic documents and related research including 1) Marketing concept 2) Sustainability concept and 3) Learning concept in order to define as a conceptual framework for the research. This research seeks to study the adaptation of the hotel business to be able to survive in a crisis of COVID-19 pandemic. The hypothesis was set in the study as follows.
Hypothesis:
H1: Marketing adaptation positively affects the hotel business’s survival in the midst of COVID-19 pandemic critical
H2: Sustainability adaptation positively affects the hotel business’s survival in the midst of COVID-19 pandemic critical
H3: Learning adaptation positively affects the hotel business’s survival in the midst of COVID-19 pandemic critical
4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
With the aim of developing a sustainable model for the hospitality businesses in Chiang Mai, the research study utilizes the research objectives as the building blocks in providing information for easing the risk during the Covid-19 crisis and becoming resilient when the situation becomes alleviated. The targets chosen for qualitative data collection were 5 hotels located in the Chiang Mai province, while the quantitative data collection were 85 hotels including 8 hotels that are rated 5 stars, 47 hotels that are rated 4 stars, and 30 hotels that are rated 3 stars hotel in the Chiang Mai province using 400 questionnaires.
In order to gain a better insight into the sustaining and surviving of the hotel businesses in Chiang Mai from the Covid-19’s impact, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 hotel managers for the qualitative data collection. Whist the questionnaires were handed out to the hotels in Chiang Mai province ranging from 3 stars to 5 stars, comprising of managers, receptionists, housekeepers, chefs, bellboys, front officers, concierge, drivers, maintenance staffs, and gardeners with the various age between 21 to 50 years old male and female.
To determine the extent on the management affairs being sustainable or surviving with the local hospitality business a semi-structured interview and questionnaires were conducted with management of the hotel by asking them on how they are managing their affairs to help them survive or become sustainable. The research questions and questions of the questionnaires are presented in detail inTable 1:
The information from the interviews for all three research questions were triangulated to obtain better insights and details to validate on the aim of “developing a sustainable model for the local hospitality businesses in Chiang Mai to alleviate the risk during the Covid-19 crisis and become resilient when the situation improves”. A conceptual framework had been developed below to answer the structured research questions that leads to toward providing information for the aim of this study.
In the conceptual framework (Figure 2), stage 1 begins with the attempt of trying to answer the three research questions which have their own contents for gaining insights. Five hotels were selected as samples for an interview. In stage 2, results from the interview process with the three questions were data triangulated to obtain validity of the study: results of research question number one were data triangulated with the results of research questions number two and number three separately; results of research question number two were data triangulated with the results of research question number three. Triangulation is an assessment process to strengthen the credibility of the research study, reduce the level of biasness, and to provide an illustration on the differences between the results to establish a reasonable valid proposition (Ghrayeb Damodaran and Vohra 2011). Data triangulation is the processing of multiple data sources to be verified for increasing validity of the study (Rahman 2012). In the final stage, the points from data triangulation have been formed to provide the ideas for “developing a sustainable model for local hospitality businesses in Chiang Mai to alleviate risk during the Covid-19 crisis and becoming resilient.”
5. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
According to the research objectives above, it is found that:
| Item | Factors | SD. | Meaning | |
| 1 | Marketing adaptation | 3.81 | 0.56 | High |
| 2 | Sustainability adaptation | 3.98 | 0.52 | High |
| 3 | Learning adaptation | 4.07 | 0.56 | High |
| Average | 3.96 | 0.41 | High | |
Table 2, it was found that the overall survival adaptation in the COVID-19 pandemic critical conditions of hotels in Chiang Mai province was high as of 3.96. When analyzing each factor, it is found that the learning adaptation has the highest mean, as of 4.07 followed by the sustainability adaptation of 3.98, and the marketing adaptation of 3.81.
Analysis of factors affecting the survival of hotels in Chiang Mai province in the midst of COVID-19 pandemic conditions can be presented intable 3.
| Factors | X1 | X2 | X3 | Y |
| X1. Marketing adaptation | 1.000 | 436** | .224** | .435** |
| X2. Sustainability adaptation | 1.000 | .378** | .417** | |
| X3. Learning adaptation | 1.000 | .654** | ||
| Y. Survival during the COVID-19 critical | 1.000 |
FromTable 3, the correlation coefficient of the cause variable was market adaptation (X1) sustainability adaptation (X2) and learning adaptation (X3) have a positive correlation with the survival of hotels in Chiang Mai province during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has a statistical significance at the 0.01. in accordance to the research hypothesis.
** Has statistical significance at the 0.01
Table 4 shows factors affecting the survival of hotels in Chiang Mai province during the COVID-19 pandemic including learning adaptation (X3) has positive relation to the survival of hotels the most, where the significance weight of factor in the form of standard (Beta) of 0.564, the raw data (B) of 0.526, followed by marketing adaptation (X1) which the significance weight of factor in the form of standard (Beta) of 0.273, the raw data (B) of 0.252. The sustainability adaptation (X2) does not have a positive effect on the survival of hotels in Chiang Mai in the COVID-19 pandemic critical conditions.
The analysis of data can be concluded that the survival of hotels in Chiang Mai province in the midst of COVID-19 pandemic can be predicted by the underlying event such as learning adaptation (X3) and marketing adaptation (X1) which was 52.70% accuracy and has a statistically significant at 0.01 level. The equations obtained from the stepwise multiple regression analysis of the variables entering the equation has a statistically significant at 0.01 level which can be written in raw data form and has standard scores as follows: The forecasting equation of survival in the midst of COVID-19 pandemic of hotels in Chiang Mai province in the form of raw data is
Y = .588 + .252 (X1) +.077 (X2) + .526 (X3) + ei
The forecasting equation of survival in the midst of COVID-19 pandemic of hotels in Chiang Mai province in the form of standard score is
Z = .564 (X3) + .273 (X1) + .078 (X2)
From research objective 1, it can be explained that the sustainability is not in consideration for the adaptation to survive in the midst of COVID-19 pandemic situation. This may be because business and sustainability are controversial (Boiral, Brotherton and Guillaumie 2021). However, when studying data from research papers and in-depth interviews from the sample, it can be concluded that in order to apply the concept of sustainable adaptation of the hotel businesses for survival during the COVID-19 crisis, the guidelines are as follows:
5.1. The Sustainability of Management Affairs in Local Hospitality
Based on the responses from the interview, all of the hotels have taken surveillance to ensure the wellbeing of the travelers and staff; some have complied with the Safety and Health Administration protocols or government policy, and having a medical doctor stand close by. Travelers and staff receive access to treatment with a transportation to the hospital should a fever and symptoms start to rise: reservations will be immediately cancelled for travelers during the situation. It’s been learned that there are no factors highlighted for planning to prevent travelers and staff being exposed to the risk as the hotels mainly use a digital payment system for ordering food online to serve them their meals. For relearning better working methods to assure confidence, the residents and staff are mainly introduced on procedures for mitigating risks of getting infected. Some hotels do engage with supporting their business network of suppliers by providing a gift voucher, recommending accommodations to other places when the rooms are full, and collaborating with tour operators, while there are other hotels not involved with any support. Education and training are promoted by having operations training organized, letting workers be trained online, training on sanitation, and having public officials invited for a meeting with the staff. The full information from the questions asked is shown inTable 5 below.
5.2. The Survival of Management Affairs in Local Tourism and Hospitality
With regards to the inquiry on the feeling that standards of service and work have been lowered two hotels (Hotel 1 and Hotel 3) stated that there hasn’t been any cost reduction; however, one of the hotels felt that the cost has doubled. Meanwhile, the other three hotels had to resort in reduction of number by cutting staff’s working hours (Hotel 2 and Hotel 4) and laying off their workers (Hotel 5). In response to issues for improving responses to problem solving and doing a better job of taking the right action, two hotels (Hotel 3 and Hotel 4) the cause is based from the training provided to employees on taking preventive measures; one hotel (Hotel 1) indicated that it’s on reducing the standard stipulation of laying off employees, while one hotel (Hotel 2) cited on complying with the government safeguard policy, and one hotel (Hotel 5) adhered on increasing protective measures with sanitizing the premises. When it comes to the question of competition three hotels (Hotel 3, Hotel 4, and Hotel 5) apply the discount technique to entice travelers to make bookings with their rooms. However, only two hotels (Hotel 1 and Hotel 2) have not taken any action to be competitive at all. For the question of creating temporary partnerships, only two hotels (Hotel 1 and Hotel 2) have been involved with a project, meanwhile the other three hotels (Hotel 3, Hotel 4, and Hotel 5) have never gotten involved with any initiatives since the pandemic crisis made its impact on the business environment.
Upon gathering data from the interview, most of the hotels have reduced the working time to reduce costs. On the issue of a developed marketing strategy if local markets are focused on, two hotels (Hotel 1 and Hotel 3) have employed a tactic to help them get customers; one hotel that is already involved with a government program has been offered a discount incentive of getting their expenses reduce by 40%, while the other hotel is working with an external agent that offers an 80% discount for making reservations through their system. Also, one hotel (Hotel 4) has focused on a mouth-to-mouth method to get locals interested in making reservations with their rooms. Unfortunately, the other two hotels (Hotel 2 and Hotel 5) are not interested in developing a marketing strategy to entice the locals to make traveling plans. According to the question of new markets being explored and consideration of new sales channel, only two hotels (Hotel 2 and Hotel 4) are targeting the local tourists to increase their revenue. As for the other three hotels (Hotel 1, Hotel 3, and Hotel 5) they are not interested with exploring on new markets nor considering about new sales channel. The information from the response is shown inTable 6 below.
5.3. The Actual Affairs of Management in Local Tourism and Hospitality
From the year of 2018 to 2020, three hotels have laid off their workers: 230 have been partially laid off (Hotel 1), eight were laid off (Hotel 5), and one hotel has made the laid off but did not provide the numbers due to security reason (Hotel 2). Two hotels (Hotel 3 and Hotel 4) have not made any layoffs but have not specified either for their own reasons. On the subject of a policy to call people back to work from being laid off, two hotels (Hotel 1 and Hotel 2) would call their workers back whenever the situation improves. Only one hotel (Hotel 5) would allow for a voluntary return to work if the workers make a request for that. One hotel (Hotel 3) already has their employees working under normal operation, while the other hotel (Hotel 4) has reduced the employees’ working hours. Only two hotels (Hotel 4 and Hotel 5) have been in operation before the pandemic occurred, meanwhile three hotels have shut down since April 2020 but have resumed business operation despite the current situation: July (Hotel 1); May (Hotel 2 and Hotel 3). The feedback from the question is shown inTable 7 below.
6. A SUSTAINABLE LOCAL HOSPITALITY MODEL TO ALLEVIATE RISK DURING THE COVID-19 CRISIS AND BECOMING RESILIENT
The sample collection from the interviews with regards to questions pertaining about sustaining, surviving, and actual affairs of management went through the process of data triangulation to determine what the key points are for supporting the research aim. On “developing a sustainable model for the local hospitality businesses in Chiang Mai to alleviate the risk during the Covid-19 crisis and become resilient when the situation improves” the main issues are the following below.
6.1. Hotels being in compliance with the government’s policy to handle the Covid-19 situation
This was the most obvious answer mentioned in the data triangulation process. With the situation at hand, the hotels cannot operate in a vacuum when making a strong initiative in preventing the disease from spreading, and putting the health and wellbeing of the staff and residences at such a high risk which can shut down the whole entire operation of tourism and hospitality. Hotels and the government will need to continuously operate in tandem by communicating about the practices that are either proving effective in results or may need to be revised for policies to implemented with obtaining truthful results. Hotels can best be served as an experimental lab for learning and innovation about ensuring the health and safety of workers and guests who come into contact with each other. Results serve as the lessons learned from examining how the policies really function and the information can help both sectors to complement each other’s practices while also communicating to other hospitality related industry to follow a conceptual model for reducing the level of health risk. The government’s policy should be flexible enough to support areas that will increase the acumen and professionalism of services provided by the hotel, because in the reality of things hotels are in the business of providing good to great customer experience instead of completely adhering to the government’s policies for its own sake as if this was a military camp.
6.2. Emphasis on employee training for taking preventive measures from getting infected
Acquiring the skills and know how within a system that is upholding preventive measures from getting infected for workers requires a diligent human resources training staff to fully collaborate with medical experts and professionals dealing with disease control to design a workshop that leads to positive results. It would be easy to have the brain trust advise on a perfect model but won’t be quite as effective as getting the input from the current employees who are dealing with the real-life situation at work. The employees are the eyes, ears, and soul of the workplace that really know what is going on and where things are going. To obtain the intelligence on developing a training program that is right for them it’s best let them point out the flaws that are ripe for disasters to occur and let them take action based on their recommendations. Even if the results from the action taken does not lead to the correct results it’s important for the organization to know that certain concepts have been tried before and that a revised approach can be executed, or maybe the targeted issue for problem solving needs more data to be determined for a more effective execution of things.
6.3. Workers laid off in order to reduce overhead costs of running the operations in the hotel
Unfortunately, the study learned that there were workers that had been released from their jobs in order to cut down on the operation expenses in the hotel. In the reality of things, certain hotels have to do what is best in order to survive which has become the modus operandi of business operation than finding ways to become much more sustainable. To be fair, the hotels could have some of their original employees underemployed by cutting back on the working hours rather than being laid off. However, financial decisions had to be made by management. From a sustainable perspective, hotels can still strengthen their reputation by turning the crisis as an opportunity by providing their former employees with a chance to earn a degree or certificate in a new trade or one that is currently related to their working background with an educational institution offering a program for future career development. As hotels are already in compliance with the government’s policy for taking preventive measures from being infected, they can coordinate with the government on placing laid off workers into educational programs to keep their hopes up for the future when things get better.
CONCLUSION
The research findings indicate that the survival strategy for the hotel industry in Chiang Mai is based on the understanding and commitment amongst business owners, managers, and staff to quickly respond to severe situation and take the right actions in serving the travelers. This has consistency with the multiple regression analysis shown inTable 4 where the learning adaptation (X3) is the most significant, followed by marketing adaptation (X1) and the sustainability adaptation (X2) respectively. These factors have a positive relation to the survival of hotels during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the magnitude of the coefficient is varied it is reliable with a statistical significance at 0.05. Therefore, the understanding of the situation along with the marketing strategy can be adopted such as lowering the room costs, focusing on the needs of Thai tourists instead of international travelers, and implementing hygiene surveillance to ensure the safety and health of travelers and staff while reducing the risk of virus contamination. Believing that any hotels apply this strategy for adaption, and communication with each other can help them get the return rates at the break-even point.
In our opinion, hotels can be sustainable enough for the long term if government sets the environmental conditions supporting a healthy and smart organization to take proactive measures that does its best to look after the wellbeing of the employees and residents. The Covid-19 situation has caused a lot of uncertainties and disruption in the travel and hospitality industry in Thailand. But then again, Thailand has already faced the SARS crisis and tsunami and have overcome the odds to get most of the hospitality business operating in the shortest amount of time. The worldwide epidemic is another challenge for hotels in Thailand, particularly in Chiang Mai, to rethink their approaches for becoming sustainable with the resources that they have and coming up with a strategic plan that gives them a resilient edge for winning the interests of foreign travelers coming back to Thailand for a visit and booking their rooms to stay.
However, the only drawback from this study was on the number of samples collected for the data due to a vast number of hotels shutting down to stop the operating expenses from piling up. Therefore, the work will need to collect more data in numerical figures to calculate on where the facts are shown based on the responses to the research questions. Perhaps it would be interesting to do a case study on how each hotel are doing to sustain their operations and let the facts and figures be explained on the current reality of struggling with the operation expenses while simultaneously learning more of what they are doing in practice of trying to maintain sustainability or have trended towards the survival mode.